


Whispers from the Past

by ScotlandEvander



Series: Over the Rainbow [24]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2013-07-17
Packaged: 2017-12-20 12:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/887104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScotlandEvander/pseuds/ScotlandEvander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Who are you?”</p><p>“I am Calliope Riddle.”</p><p>If Tom could, he would have fainted. </p><p>“Are you? Do you happen to have a brother?”</p><p>The girl sniffed, looking away. “Yes.”</p><p>“I do not have a sister!” Tom shouted in Atlanta’s head. “There is no way for me to have one! My mother died giving birth to me.”</p><p>“Half sister?” Atlanta asked.</p><p>“Oh,” Tom responded faintly. </p><p>“How do you know? Is he famous?” Calliope Riddle asked, responding to Atlanta’s question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whispers from the Past

**Disclaimer: If you know it, I fail to own it.**

_A/N: This links with_ Shattered _and_ History Keeps Pulling _. There are TWO Atlantas, only one thinks she’s Calliope Riddle._

* * *

Today was a good day. 

They had not seen Regulus Black. 

While Tom was not overly fond of Regulus Black, he was a proper gentleman and kept Atlanta out of trouble. Without Black around, Tom feared for the girl’s sanity. She spent an abnormal amount of time with Sirius Black, who was not a proper young man and had the maturity level of a five year old. 

But, today was a good day.

There was no Sirius Black. 

There also was no moping, no sobbing and all the Marauders had left for the holidays. Granted, this meant Lily Evans (the only person Tom could stand at the moment Atlanta associated with) was gone, but today was a superb day. 

Today they were sequestered in the library, at a secluded table inside the Restricted Section. Tom had convinced Atlanta to get an all access pass to the Restricted Section from Slughorn. Tom, having skills in charm and wheedling things out of people, had fed her the words to flatter Slughorn to the point he handed over the all access pass. Slughorn was impressed with Atlanta, despite her dismal performance in Potions, so it wasn’t all that hard.

Tom didn’t understand what Atlanta’s issue was with Potions. Even with Tom and Severus’ help, she still wasn’t very talented. At least she didn’t blow things up. 

Tom had no clue why the girl lacked the ability to make a potion. It was a mystery. She knew all the little details that would make her a world class Potions Mistress. Atlanta rationalized as it being she knew the talk, but failed to walk the walk. 

Whatever that meant. 

No, Slughorn was impressed with the her spell creating skills. 

In around about way, he was mostly impressed by Tom Riddle.

Not that was surprising. Tom Riddle was impressive. Brillant. Clever. 

Shaking his nonexistent head, he focused on something else. 

His original goal for her all access pass was to look up how Walburga had made the blasted sketchbook in the first place in hopes it would lead to a way to de-bond their magic from one another, but the more they had researched it, the more Tom realized magic bonds were strong and irreversible. 

Tom was forever tied to her magic. As long as there was a source of her magic to draw on, Tom would live. Forever. 

Or whatever he was doing. He didn’t eat or breathe, so he really wasn’t living. His heart didn’t beat, no blood pumped through his veins. 

He did sleep, for some reason. 

But, no, Tom Riddle was not alive, so he wasn’t living. He was existing.  

“Riddler, do you see this?”

Tom turned his focus from not looking through Atlanta’s eyes to what she was reading. He hated residing in her arm, but he did not have much choice if he wanted to venture out in the world. She no longer had her own room— she’d been sorted into Ravenclaw at the start of the year per her agreement with Dumbledore when she’d arrived— so Tom spent an abnormal amount of time with Atlanta, as there was only so much time he wanted to spend the Room of Hidden Things. 

Lately, he preferred to watch silently out her eyes. She couldn’t hear his thoughts, or he hers. She only heard him when he spoke. If he kept his emotions in check she was hardly aware of him. He was like a silent observer on her life. 

It’d been great till Regulus was an idiot. 

Atlanta was unable to make herself feel anything less than at full blast, so since Regulus had come out as a Death Eater (honestly, what was with that name?) Tom had been blasted with every single emotion he found weak, horrible and not worth feeling.  

Sentiment was weak, useless and pointless.

And yet, he felt it. It hurt and he did not understand. 

She had not been surprised by the news. Tom had a feeling she had known Regulus had joined the Death Eater’s for a while, but when Regulus finally admitted it to her and informed her of his “mission” to convert her, she’d snapped. Her heart broke, grief shot through her like a knife. 

She’d said nothing to him, just stared. For the longest time she had sat there staring at Regulus, who wore a heart breaking expression, waiting for her reaction. 

She fled.

She’d gotten into the Gryffindor Tower with help from Tom and threw herself into Remus Lupin’s bed and cried her eyes out for hours till the others had shown up. Where the Marauders were, Tom was not sure. Nor was he sure why she’d run to them of all people.  

When they had shown up, Tom was even more confused by the blast of emotions sent at him as she clung to Sirius Black. 

After that, he gave up trying to sort his own emotions out from hers and managed to simply exist for the next twenty-four hours. She tore him out of her arm at that point, storing him in the cube of her magic. He had no idea how she’d done it, but after being blasted with every single emotion known to man he didn’t care at all he basically ceased to exist, confined in a tiny cube.  

That had been bliss. 

He wasn’t sure how many days passed when she pulled him out of the cube and put him back into her arm. She was calmer, but the emotions were still running rather high. She was disgusted with herself and was determined to act like nothing was wrong. Tom was sure he was the only person (thing) that knew she was an emotional mess still. 

She then forced the Marauders on him, explaining Lily Evans wanted to work with Tom on wards. This had peaked Tom’s interest, as from what he’d observed of Lily Evans she was a gifted witch. Even if she was a Muggleborn. Actually, it was a testament to the fact magic had nothing to do with bloodline that Lily Evans, a Muggleborn, was such a powerful witch. 

 And today Atlanta didn’t seem to be an emotional wreck. 

For the first time in a month. 

Thus, it was a good day. They could get things done. 

“Tom!” Atlanta hissed quietly. “I’m risking talking to myself to get your attention, you bugger. Listen.”

“Sorry. I’m listening now. And looking. What am I looking at— passed you’re reading a book on time travel…”

“This note. Look at it,” she whispered, her eyes darting all over the place.

“Stop moving your eyes. I can only see what you see, remember?”

Her eyes stopped moving, locking onto the piece of paper. Tom read the note. It was in a pen and clearly written by a child. 

_Congrats, Draak! I hope some of these spells will help, or something, as I’m totally over 1943. The boy who I landed on is an insane psychopath. Cheers, Siri_

“Interesting. Why does it concern you?”

“Draak. Means dragon. In I think Dutch…”

“That’s great,” Tom drawled.

“Dragon. Time travel. Draco. Dragon. Get it? It’s code.”

Tom thought for a moment, mentally frowning. “Did he call you Siri?”

“Well, no.”

“The only person I know called Siri is Sirius Black. Only you and Lupin refer to him in that manner.” 

Atlanta didn’t respond, but Tom could almost hear her thinking it was so loud. 

“Tom. My middle name is Siria. Not Dorothy,” Atlanta hissed, her eyes going to darting all over the place again. “What if this is from, well, my future self? The one that’s not born yet? What if her nickname is Siri and she calls Malfoy…well, dragon in Dutch for some reason.”

“I thought you were in an alternative universe?”

“Yeah, yeah. But, still? What if the other me, the younger me, also went back in time, to a point before now in this new timeline Malfoy created when he threw himself back?”

Tom thought it over, retreating away from looking out her eyes as it was giving him a headache. How he was able to get headaches was beyond him. He had no body and hardly felt anything physically, but sometimes looking out her eyes made his head hurt. 

“It could happen, in theory. I was alive in 1943. I would have been sixteen.”

“You’re from 1941 or ’42. You’re at your tail end of your fourth year, or start of fifth, right?”

“That is our theory. I turned sixteen in 1942, on New Years Eve, so most of it I was fifteen. I think, in my current form I’m about fifteen. Or was fifteen. I look fifteen,” Tom concluded. “And I had knowledge through my fourth year at Hogwarts. Very little of fifth. I did not take my OWLs.” 

Age wasn’t something either of them got into in depth. Neither knew how old they currently were. Nor did they really pay much attention to the fact Tom had not actually finished his fifth year. He had completed sixth year easily and was working with Atlanta on seventh. If he ever got a body or got “home” he’d sit his exams and pass them without breaking a sweat. 

“Dumbledore’s theory is Malfoy used this. I am staring at the book right now,” she whispered.

Tom moved to look through her eyes. He read the page she was on and told her to turn when he was ready. 

“Interesting. A three stage potion for time travel,” Tom murmured. 

“Plus an ancient incantation,” Atlanta added. “It makes sense. He had a vial and a piece of paper with him. And there was an empty, open box near by. And Malfoy, unlike _moi_ , was good at potions. His godfather was a Potions Master. Or is. His godfather was my potions partner.”

Tom mentally snorted. “Some good that’s done you.”

“I’ve helped him a lot.”

“Yes. You’ve given him a mirage of tips, yet none of them help you for some reason,” Tom drawled. 

“Oh, hush. Anyways, what if the other me went back and is trapped in 1943?”

“Are you trying to un-trap yourself or her?”

Tom wasn’t sure why they were seated in the Restricted Section reading time travel books. The whole reason he wanted her in the Restricted Section today was to learn more about wards. He was sure there was knowledge somewhere in the library that would aid them in creating a ward to keep people bearing that ugly mark out of people’s homes. From reading the newspaper, this war forged by this He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was getting worse. And from what Atlanta had told him, this megalomanic’s followers all bore a mark on their left arm. 

“I’m fine here. The future I knew died the moment Draco sent me here. If I go back to 1998, it’ll be very different from how I left it. And there’d be two of me more than likely.”

“Wouldn’t time re-write itself around you?” Tom suggested. “I read that somewhere in some book you had.”

“Oh, this one,” she said, pulling another one towards her. “This guy is crackers. This guy in this book with the potion Malfoy used knows what he’s talking about. He states that depending on the method used, you can go forward or backwards. When you only transport your soul…it’s a oneway trip.”

“But all of you went,” Tom pointed out.

“Ah, but Draco sent only his soul. I was a happy accident,” she offered. She turned a few more pages and went back to ready.

“Happy accident?” Tom dryly asked. 

She sighed. “Tom, I might not be jumping for joy, my heart may hurt, but I wouldn’t trade any of this. I’ll take the heartache over going back to where I came from. I know you don’t understand, but that’s fine.”

Tom did not understand. Love was yet another emotion he failed to grasp. He was fond of Atlanta, but he didn’t love her. His feelings were no way as complex as what she felt when she looked at Regulus, thought about Regulus, or dreamed about Regulus. 

Atlanta was the first person Tom could stand for long periods of time in his life that he did not want to whack over the head with a mallet. The first person he thought worthy of his company. While she had her flaws and annoyances, Tom depended on her not because he was tied to her. Her strange, unfamiliar manner of thinking and behaving inspired him. For the first time in his entire life he was not consumed by anger, or his quest to be more powerful, better than everyone around him. His anger and rage were almost gone. His need to control had wavered. 

It scared him when he heard stories about the current Dark Lord, this He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named who Atlanta called Moldy Trousers. The man sounded almost exactly what Tom had envisioned himself becoming, only not as…ruthless. The goals the man stated, his methods…all sounded eerily familiar. 

Tom Riddle mentally shuddered. 

The fact someone like Regulus was _following_ the man made Tom feel sick. He knew Regulus was a confused child, torn between doing what his heart wanted and what his family wished for him to do, but why any mother would want her son to devote his life to the shadows was unfeasible to imagine. This Dark Lord was a terrorist. While Tom did not _like_ Muggles, exterminating and subjugating them wasn’t the answer. Ignoring Muggles was best. Introducing Muggleborns to wizarding society before age eleven was the way to go, not to kill them. Some of them were more magically powerful than the purebloods.  

And no wizard or witch ought to be LEFT in a Muggle orphanage. 

That was a point both Atlanta and Tom agreed on. Their political views were not similar in the least, but neither was extreme. They both fell between the two extremes, just at other ends of the middle. This led to good debates when they were alone. 

“Tom?”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to write another note on this paper. To Malfoy.”

“Why?”

“Because. When I’m done, I’m going to leave this book here for him to find in the future. I think it’ll help him understand time travel. I’m sure he doesn’t know what he got himself into. Changing time is hard. Fixed points in time, yet you can rewrite time, rework it? I tried to change so many things, but nothing is changing.”

“You now think you’ve time travelled?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?”

“Fine,” Tom said. “What are you doing?”

“Going to the room. I’m going to get myself out of 1943 and send her back to where ever she came from.”

* * *

Tom and Atlanta were in the Room of Requirement. It was a basic rendition of a sitting room might find in the guest quarters at Hogwarts. Atlanta was practicing the spell she and Tom had worked on the past two weeks, improving the time spells in the book that did not work. It was no wonder everyone thought the author of the book was a crackpot. None of his spells worked because they were all missing key elements. Any idiot could see that. 

“I think you have it down,” Tom informed her, standing across the room from her. It was as far as he could get when there was no magic of hers in the room other than her. “But you’re going to need a lot of power to pull off two time spells in one go. And I doubt your younger self knows me or will leave in a timely manner if she sees me.”

“Point, Riddler. In the arm.”

She held out her arm. Tom felt the pull and let himself go. The next time he opened his eyes, he was in Atlanta’s arm and staring out her eyes. 

“All right, here goes.” 

Tom felt her nerves and tried to make her calm down with his own emotional calmness. 

“Thanks.” She took a deep breath. “ _Atlanta Black Novedecim Quadraginta Duo Gratia Nunc Proxferoiam.”_

Magic poured out of her wand as she slashed it through the air in the complicated wand motions. Tom poured his magic into the spell, loving the reeling of rushing power surge through him and into Atlanta. The space in front of them bent and glowed. The grey, black and white magic swirled around and there was a rushing wind that blew all through the room. Atlanta closed her eyes for a moment till the wind settled. 

“Explain. Now.”

The snappy, posh British accent got Tom’s attention. Atlanta opened her eyes, pushing her hair out of her face. Standing in front of them was a child, maybe eleven or twelve, in Slytherin robes from Tom’s era. She had curly black hair, very pale skin and ruby red lips. She held herself like the pureblood witches of Slytherin. 

There was something…wrong with this child. Tom had no clue what exactly, but she might kind of look like Atlanta Black, but she was not Atlanta Black. 

“I told you to explain to me what I am doing here. Now,” she ordered in a very familiar tone. 

“Who are you?” Atlanta asked. “Are you Atlanta Black?”

“Excuse me?”

“I wanted Atlanta Black. You kinda look like I did when I was eleven, but…”

Atlanta trailed off. Tom couldn’t pin point what her emotions were, so he wasn’t sure what she was thinking. 

“I can assure you I am not this Atlanta Black person,” the young girl assured the older girl.

“Who are you?”

“I am Calliope Riddle.”

If Tom could, he would have fainted. 

“Are you? Do you happen to have a brother?”

The girl sniffed, looking away. “Yes.”

“I do not have a sister!” Tom shouted in Atlanta’s head. “There is no way for me to have one! My mother died giving birth to me.”

“Half sister?” Atlanta asked

“Oh,” Tom responded faintly. 

“How do you know? Is he famous?” Calliope Riddle asked, responding to Atlanta’s question. 

Now that he was looking at girl, he could see certain traits that were similar to his. The lips. He had annoyingly red lips like hers. He always thought they were much too feminine for a boy to have. And the girl’s fingers. Those absurdly long, slender fingers. The girl’s hair was curlier, not how the un-glamoured hair of Atlanta Black curled, though. This girl had neat curls, black as night. 

But the neatness of the curl was a lot like Tom’s.

She was also bleeding some rather familiar looking magic. 

“She does have a few traits that I do,” Tom admitted. “The more I look at her, the more she looks similar to me.” 

“Yeah, I noticed. But…she’s me.”

“How do you know?”

“Who are you speaking to?” Calliope Riddle demanded, pointing her wand at Atlanta.

It was not the same wand Atlanta Black currently had in her hand. Atlanta stared at her own wand and back at the wand pointed at her. 

“I might be a first year, but I know a lot more magic than the average first year.”

“No doubt,” Atlanta muttered. “I can feel my own magic in her. And yours.”

“Let me out.”

Atlanta rolled her sleeve up, ignoring the demands of the younger girl and pulled Tom out of her arm. The younger girl gasped loudly and cried, “T.M.! What are you— what _are_ you?”

“That is up for debate. I do not remember you, but I can see the similarities between you and I. I’m…fifteen.”

“Ah. I did not find you until you were sixteen.”

“And how did you find me?”

She launched into a long story that involved an affair, living in France and her mother dying and her searching for her family and finding Tom in an orphanage by chance. Tom and Atlanta listened, both exchanging looks with one another. Tom asked her after she was done if they could try something. He allowed his magic to reach out for the child and he instantly felt himself wrap around her and the pull was instant. He quickly pulled away. 

“She has my magic, my blood in her, but she has yours as well. I think…”

Atlanta hurried over to the girl and grabbed her left arm. The girl tried to wretch her arm out of Atlanta’s grip, but Atlanta pulled the robe back and exposed a long, snake like scar from the child’s wrist to her elbow. Calliope claimed it was from a childhood accident, but Tom would know that scar anywhere. 

He had been debating on using that as a way to mark his followers in the future. He doodled it on everything. 

“Addy,” Tom said quietly as she let the girl go. The child backed up against the wall and stared at the pair wearily. Tom felt an emotion well up he could not place. “I think I did something terrible to you.”

“Tom, you did not do this. The actual you did this,” Atlanta said. She placed a hand on his shoulder. “I can leave you two here, right? You won’t go poof?”

“No, her magic will tether me,” Tom said, still staring at the child. 

Atlanta nodded. “I’ll be back. I’ll grab Dumbledore.”

Calliope made a face as Atlanta left the room. Tom stared at the child. 

“Tee, what is going on. Tell me now. Did I travel through time? I shouted something at you about time ,” Calliope said, looking more at ease left alone with him. “I’ve been having these dreams. I dream of this terrible monster and I remember things that have yet to happen. Yet, there’s this voice that keeps whispering that time can be rewritten. I keep dreaming you turned into a monster, not a glorious.”

“Excuse me?” Tom asked.

She looked scared and began to backing away. Tom took small steps in order to not get too far away. She bit her bottom lip hard and refused to meet his eyes, backing up till she hit the wall. Tom stopped walking, realizing his error. 

“I’m not him,” Tom suddenly said. “I’m not the same person you have been dealing with.”

She looked up at him, searching his face. 

“No, you’re not,” she quietly conceded. Looking curious, she asked, “Do you know who Lord Voldemort is?”

“It is a name I was playing around with.”

“What year is it?”

“1977,” Tom replied. 

“Who is the current Dark Lord?”

“Someone they refer to as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,” Tom replied. 

Calliope Riddle stared at him with huge amber eyes flecked with dark blue specks.  

“I knew that,” she breathed.

And like that, Tom realized what he’d done to the girl. 

He’d bound them together through their blood, mixing blood and magical abilities. It was almost like blood adoption, only darker. He must have also altered her memories, implanting the Calliope Riddle persona within Atlanta. And for the change of behavior to be so…he must have cleared her mind and turned her into a blank slate. 

Only it hadn’t worked properly. Atlanta was fighting back, hence the dreams. Hence the random knowledge the child did not understand. 

“T.M.?”

“Don’t call me that. Please, call me Tom.”

Her eyes went even wider, if that was possible. “You’d rather me call you by your given name?”

Tom stood up taller. “Yes.”

“All right,” she said slowly. “Who was that older girl? Who is she?”

“Atlanta Black.”

“Am I still in Hogwarts?”

“Yes.”

Calliope Riddle fell silent and stared at the floor. Tom was not sure how much time passed before he heard the door open. Due to the fact he did not want Dumbledore to see him, he hid behind the couch before Dumbledore had a chance to enter. 

He heard Dumbledore gasp. 

“Miss Riddle? Is that really you?”

“Yes, Professor Dumbledore,” was the polite reply. “This girl had pulled me out of the past and brought me here because she claims I’m Atlanta Black. Or something.”

Atlanta cleared her throat. “It is me.”

Dumbledore was quiet for a long time. 

“I have no doubt it is you, Miss Black,” Dumbledore finally replied. “I thought you were Miss Riddle when you first arrived, though there were several things off about your appearance. I believe we best go to my office. Miss Riddle? If you could follow me, we’ll start looking into getting you home.”

“Was T.M. upset when I disappeared?”

“Mr. Riddle’s wrath was something to behold,” Dumbledore murmured. 


End file.
